 Welcome to another Christmasy Reading Vlog. This one, I'm actually so excited. I am so excited. It is the start of a new series on my channel called Taste the TBR. We're basically we're gonna have a food or sweet thing of some kind and we're gonna have a lot of them. In this case, we've got Christmas cookies. Can we just appreciate how gorgeous these Christmas cookies are? I did not make them. I cannot take credit. And they're gonna be lots of different flavours. And obviously I'm not able to tell what the flavours are and I'm gonna eat three of the cookies and they are gonna pick what I read. I'm so excited. I can't describe to you how excited I am for this series to start. So basically there's six flavours here and each of them corresponds to a different genre. So whatever flavour I eat, I then have to read a book and that genre. So we have vanilla which is a fantasy book, lemon which is a non-fiction, caramel which is a mystery, orange which is a horror, winter spice which is a romance or a contemporary and mint which is a thriller. I cannot tell you how excited I am. I feel like it's gonna be a great series to start on my channel. I love videos where I have no control. I love videos where I just give up control to some other thoughts and it picks what I read. Anyway, so I'm in control but I'm out of control and I'm also um controlled. So in a way I'm everything. Now I just have to pick which one to eat first. Now it feels like a lot of pressure. What one should you have first? That one? A centre? I think I've already tried him. You've already tried him? Get a little nibble. I think I'm gonna try him. Okay I'm gonna have a bite. Ready? That's caramel. Okay, caramel. So that is a mystery. Mystery, that's good result. So one mystery book. We've got to read a mystery. I'm gonna put that cookie down. I haven't finished it. I think I want to... I can't see. They can't see because it's so bright anyway. I think I want to try one of each. I really like this. I know it's really nice isn't it? Sorry this is incredible. We're gonna have so much fun eating the rest of these. I think I want to have one of each shape. So I think I'm gonna go for this next. I've got winter spice. I've got winter spice ones. I love the refills. That's a romance or a contemporary. Then we want a snowman. What snowman do I pick? There's lots of snowmen. Oh my god I don't know which one. Okay which of these snowmen do you like? That one middle. Okay. It's slightly crispier. Okay. Then yes there will be some casualties. Yes there will. Oh that's mint. Oh my god that's so good try that. That's really minty. That's super minty. That's mega minty. That's mega minty. Oh my god. What's mint? Mint is a thriller. Okay it's a thriller romance and mystery. A mystery. Thriller romance and mystery. So now I've got to go pick. It's a pretty well romance I don't read a lot of. Okay so now I'm gonna go choose a mystery or romance and a thriller and see what I need to read. Oh my god I'm so excited. This is so much fun. Okay so I went and had a look at my books and I decided what I'm gonna read. So the mystery. I'm gonna read The Christie Affair by Nina de Gremont. This comes out in January. This is an arc. I got sent of it. I'm really excited to read this. This is one that I have been like trying to fit into videos. Essentially it's about when Agatha Christie went missing for 11 days and it's kind of like a fictionalization of that from the perspective of her husband's mistress. The drama. Oh tea central over here. So yeah this is like one of my most anticipated mysteries that is coming out and I'm just very excited. So we're gonna read this for mystery. Then for romance I knew immediately why I had to read. We're gonna read The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox which just came through in December's Book of the Month picks. I just have to read like a Christmasy romance. Like come on it's like I just have to read a Christmasy romance in this video for romance. All I know about this is that we've got two twins who like swap lives and I think they're both bakers and they fall in love with like a guy in the other's life essentially. Yeah I'm really excited for this. I've been like I spoke about this in the video when I when I mentioned Book of the Month. I have been obsessed with The Great British Bake Off right now. I've only got the finale left to watch and I'm like not watching it even though I know what happens but then it's like done. Then I finished watching the series and I'll be so sad but like I'm definitely in the baking mood so I'm very excited for this. And then for thriller I decided to go with a thriller. I've been so excited to read but like it's the kind of thriller that's easy for me to forget is All My Shells because it's a bit older The Couple Next Door by Sheryl Lapina. This is like Sheryl Lapina's like I would say most successful most popular thriller. I really liked The Unwanted Guest and Unwanted Guest by Sheryl Lapina. I read that last year. I think this is the one about where a husband and wife go around a neighbor's house for like dinner and they leave their baby at their house next door and then the baby goes missing. It's just like I feel like one of the most classic it's a very hyped thriller. So I'm super excited to read that as well. So yeah I feel like we've got a good mix in this vlog of what we're gonna be reading. I'm super excited. I think I'm gonna read it in the order that it picked it so I'm gonna start with the mystery and I'll chat to you once I'm a little bit of the way through this. I'm really enjoying it. I'm having a lot of fun reading this. The writing this is incredible. The writer has a certain like cadence and style to it that is really unique and really different and I'm really enjoying reading it. I'm really enjoying reading from Nan's perspective who is Agatha's husband mistress. Now okay a few things to be said. Firstly it is a bit strange reading this about Agatha Christie. Like for example writing style would Agatha, would Miss Agatha want us to read about her having sex? I don't know. I don't know. She might have been like yes I did that and you were done it too for a check or she might be like get my fucking name out of your mouth. Do you know what I mean? Like this is a person that lived and like sometimes just away. Like sometimes I find the bits with Agatha Christie in them a little bit weird. She's not actually not in it that much in the first half but I'm like it's a bit strange. It reminds me of when I watched, I didn't like this movie. I like this book but I watched the movie about Ruth Bader Ginsburg like the one with actors. Oh my god is Armie Hammer in that one? Anyway. I like one of the first scenes is her having sex with her husband and it just felt like strange. Like this is supposed to be, it's supposed to be a film about her and her achievements and like for the first half hour all you kind of know about her is like her having sex with her husband. It's what it felt like and I'm kind of like oh like would this, would if I died would I want people to write about me having sex? Like is it suddenly free game? I don't know. Another thing to be noted is that well this is about a real thing that happened. Agatha going missing when she learned of her husband's infidelity. The mistress in this is not the real mistress. This is a fictional character which I think is a really interesting choice because I think it gives the author a lot more freedom to decide for themselves what happened and to make up this kind of fictional reality. So once I learnt that once I did a little bit of research because I wanted like the true tea on what happened I think it made me look at the story in a different light because it really made this feel like fiction. You know it's taking that event of Agatha Christie going missing and using it as inspiration but like this character is not Agatha Christie, this character is not that person. Like they are figments of imagination you know? And I'm just really enjoying it. I feel like it's being paced really well. It's very much about Nan, his mistress and about her lover that she had in Ireland when she was younger. It's about the war. It's about kind of the effect that's had on a lot of the characters and I feel like it's just being plotted and paced really well. It's very interesting to me. We have got two timelines. Apprehensive, nervous. But it's kind of like a main timeline and flashback so I'm okay with it. We are not entering into my like timeline difficulty here. And I don't know I'm just excited to see where it's going to go now that it's very obvious to me that the book is going down a very different direction to what actually happened. It's really like gone off on something very different that probably is what happened but it's kind of a very imaginative story. Here's the thing, it's not like a mystery like Agatha Christie's ones. We speak a lot about Agatha's writing and her style of books and what she liked to write and I really love that. Like sometimes it'll quote something from one of her books in passage and I really love like the callbacks to her writing but it's not like a who done it mystery. It's verging on mystery but it's not quite there. But I'm still really really enjoying it. I'm hoping I'm going to finish this tonight pretty much. In the morning we're going to go down to our local like garden centre to get our Christmas tree and to pick up a few more like decorations. I'll take you along with me but I'm hoping to pretty much get close to finishing this tonight. Pretty much all I want to do is read and it's quite an easy fast-paced read. So yeah I'm really, this is really successful and I feel like a lot of you are going to like this too when it does come out. Where have you been bitch? Where have you bloody been? So over the past couple days I have had the cold from hell. I haven't left the house for two years. If you catch a cold your body's like cold. Who is she? Who is she? So I'm, I can't breathe. So it's been about two days since I last spoke to, no we're on day three. So I haven't really felt up to talking at all but I have thought up to reading. So we're going to chat about that. Literally guys, I hate having colds. I get so, I get very delirious when I'm sleeping because I get very anxious and so I get very like nervous. So apparently I've been like, according to Tom I've been like talking all night every night but I don't remember much of it. Last night he says I sneezed directly all over his face and then said besties and then started snoring straight away. So that gives you an idea of what I've been like to deal with the past couple days. Anyway, so I finished the Christie affair and I really enjoyed it. I'm going to give this four stars. I really, really loved the direction that this story took. I thought that the direction that it went in terms of the topics that were discussed was really, really interesting and not something that I've read a lot about before. This like made me cry a couple times. I only didn't cry because like I didn't want to get my face full puffy but like literally tears like a little, a little peeked over by like sucked them in. You know what I mean? It made me cry a couple times with the topics that kind of started getting discussed. Yeah, it was, it was very emotional which wasn't something that I was expecting from this. I know, I don't look upset. Don't get upset. Don't worry. Also, like I said, I thought the discussion around Agatha's writing, you can tell that this is written by someone who loves Agatha Christie or just in their research but like I feel like it was somebody who loves Agatha Christie. I love when books write about writing and like talking about say Agatha's knowledge of poisons or like lines that she used that were poignant to what was happening in the story was really, really interesting. I actually did like the split timelines in this. Finally. And listen above all, Nan as a character, I was in her fucking corner. I was in her corner which isn't something that's easy to do because she is the other woman. You know, she is knowing me in an affair with Agatha's husband and you kind of learn more about who she is and her reasons and like her motivations throughout the book and I fucking loved that. I loved her so it's not. Don't be nervous going into this because it's told from the mistress's perspective that it's an unlikable narrator. I don't really, I don't think it is. I think society, you know, the impulse is gonna be I'm not gonna like this woman but her and her relationship with Agatha not only during the time period that this is set but she kind of intimates of what it's like throughout the years of follow this story. I found that very interesting. I just thought this was so, so well written. I would recommend it to fans of Agatha Christie. I was a bit nervous early on about whether it was truly like a respectful story to write about Agatha Christie but as I read it, I really felt like it was. I just didn't give it a five because it just didn't feel like a five, you know what I mean? But I still really, really enjoyed it. Then, while I was ill, I went ahead and I read the whole of the holiday swap. So we've got to talk about this whole ass book, okay? All of you being upset that I read a whole book without checking in with you about it. So do you think I deserve better than that? Yes. Firstly, the thing I didn't know about this, this is written by two women. This is a, this is a, this is a pen name. What I want to know is did they each write one of the twins' perspectives or was it like just a complete collaborative effort? That's what I want to know because to me it didn't feel like different writers, right? When I read books before where authors, it was written by two authors and they've each written one perspective you couldn't fucking tell. Whereas this read the same. So either they're very similar writers or they kind of just collaborated on the whole thing which is interesting. So we're following these two twins. I've forgotten their names. Jesus Christ. Charlie and Cass, there we go. Due to an accident that Charlie has on her TV show that she hosts, she hosts like a cooking TV show. She can no longer smell or taste. So she calls up Cass and she's like, I need you to switch place with me. I need you to come do my job on TV and I'll come home and I'll look after our family bakery. And listen, hi Jinx and Sue. They basically each fall in love with one of the guys in each other's life. So whilst pretending to be each other, they fall in love with guys who think they are each other and it's awkward. I liked it. I liked it. It was an easy read. I really liked the audiobook for this. I'd recommend if you're interested in this book, pick up the audiobook for it. My biggest gripe. I have two gripes. Two gripes. There's no Christmas. There's no Christmas. My whole point of me wanting to read this book was wanting to read at least one Christmas romance this month. If I could not do a lot, I can at least read one Christmas romance this month. And Christmas had no relevancy. I don't care what anyone says. This could have been set at the height of summer. The only thing that is Christmasy is right at the end there's like Christmas day because we're leading up to Christmas day. Christmas day happens right at the end. Who gives a fuck? The only thing they agree, we will reunite on Christmasy. That is it. And like one of the places is snowy but snow is not exclusively Christmas. I wanted it to feel Christmas. Like it didn't. It didn't feel Christmasy. So then why am I sitting here reading it? If you're giving me a Christmas romance, I want the festive holiday season to be part of the plot and it wasn't. So that's gripe number one. Grip number two is I didn't feel attached to either of the romances. For me, the story was so interesting about the twins navigating being each other, particularly in each other's careers. You know, Kaz having to learn how to be like a TV personality and like turn it on in front of the cameras and like deal with that higher pressure environment. And Charlie having to learn how to run a business that is so dependent on its like local community to survive and reliability and all of that stuff. That was interesting. I really enjoyed that aspect of the book. Learning things about their life and their careers and about each other through this. So interesting. But the romances, I kind of didn't give one shit about. Me anytime there was a conflict in one of the romances. Oh really? That sucks. Throughout I was like, I'm not attached to this. Like the vibes, the vibes aren't there. I gave it in the end a 3.5 but leaning more towards a 3. So I did round it down on Goodreads, which is why I don't like Goodreads because I don't have to round down because it's not a 3. It's a 3.5. You know what I mean? I went over this for days because I was like, I feel so bad like rounding it down. But like it's a 3.5. But it's not a 4. So yeah, I mean I think it's a cute Christmas romance if you're looking but like that's quite dramatic. I was going to say if you're looking for Christmas romance just read another one because it's not Christmasy but I don't know what other ones are like. All of them like this they promise Christmas and then I get no Christmas. Where's the Christmas in this? Where's the Christmas in this? So that's my thoughts on those two books. Listen, it doesn't it serve me right that I'm doing a video about flavors of things and now I can't taste. Anyway, time to read our final book for this video, which I am actually so excited for because I feel like Miss Shari Lapina writes such good, quick paced thrills. I'm so excited. Shari Lapina is one of the authors. I'm most excited to read her backlist. I do own not a happy family. What I know about this, I think the general easy premise is this couple have gone to a dinner party at their neighbor's house next door. They've left their baby next door and they're checking on her like every hour. I think half hour actually they're checking on her every half hour and they go back at the end of the night and the daughter is gone and they're like what the fuck. So that's basically what it is. Why is it called the couple next door? That that intrinsically makes me not trust the couple whose dinner party they're going to. But anyway, I did not realize how red this book is. I think I went and looked at my Goodreads and in terms of ratings on Goodreads, this is like my 12th most rated unread book. Kind of crazy. Kind of crazy. More people have rated this than Sherlock Holmes. But it's just interesting. I didn't realize quite what a big book this is. I think I'm going to try out the audiobook for this as well. And yeah, I'm really excited. I feel like Sheryl Lapina is just going to give me some twists and turns and that's what I need. I'm going to try and read the whole thing tonight because I'm in the mood, I'm in the know, get ready to get set and here we go. What is that from? I don't know. Anyway, time to go read. I'm going to go ahead and read the couple next door. I will check in with you when I'm halfway. Okay, as much later, I'm looking a certain kind of way, feeling a certain kind of way. I want to know what does it feel like to be so goddamn ugly? Anyway, all I have to say, she's kind of iconic. She's kind of iconic. She's kind of incredible. I'm kind of loving it. So the synopsis I told you is a synopsis. We get into that very quickly and then we meet the detective covering the case and it's all figuring out who's telling the truth, who's lying, who can we trust. And like, it's been so interesting. I kind of love when it's just scenes of people getting questioned I love that in books. That is a little bit, that is a little bit iconic to me. When it's just characters getting questioned, it reminds me of Murder on the Orange Express, where literally like half that book is just Porro sitting down an interview with each passenger. This isn't as like strictly like that book, each chapter is an interview with this person, an interview with this person. But it's a lot of just interviews with the detective and also just other characters talking and trying to figure out like reading between the lines. I've got my little detective hat on. I'm like Scooby and Shaggy, I'm solving a mystery. And I'm loving it. And we just had a little twist, literally at the halfway point where I am. And it kind of, it kind of how the turntables, it kind of switched everything on its head. And like Miss Charli Lapina can just write a thriller. I need to read her whole backlist. I need to unwrap Not A Happy Family somehow. I know it's a hardback so we're halfway there because I really want to read it. I'm just like, oh, she's the perfect, simple, easy to read thriller because I'm not feeling very well. I was out here trying to read fucking some shit like Emma, Jane Austen, can you imagine? I could not handle it. But this is the perfect thing that's so quick, fast paced, easy to read. I'm gobbling, goopling. That's not the right terminology. But whatever, I'm eating it up. I'm eating it up. It's amazing. It's so good. Oh my god, I'm really enjoying it. I don't know if it's going to be a four or five currently. I suppose that that is determined by where it goes from here because I think an unwanted guest was four stars. But the whole ambiance and the like setting and the claustrophobicness of that book sticks in my memory. So something about Charli Lapina is a little bit amazing. Let's be honest. I don't know if I like the title, The Couple Next Door, and the thing on the front that says people are capable of almost anything. And the thing on the back says what would you be capable of when pushed past your limit? I don't know if that's making us think certain things. I don't know if I like the whole marketing around this book. I feel like it should have been called something else. I feel like they're telling us they're hinting at stuff too much. You know when you're watching one of my videos and I say, oh, there's this twist at the end. You're like, Megan, I don't want to know that. And I just do it anyway. That's kind of what this feels like. It's making me think certain things and I'm like, the tea. Well, here's the tea. Anyway, I'm going to go finish it. The tea what? I'm going to finish it and I'll talk to you in the morning. So hello. I finished the couple next door and I've got cat hair on my lips. I'm going to give it four stars. I really enjoyed it in terms of the, sorry, I'm like making you shake. You're on the bed. I really enjoyed it in terms of the like thrilling aspect of it, right? I think it's a really fun read. I listened to the audiobook and read the physical book and it's just quick. It's fast paced. Miss Sharon Lapina, excuse me, this is her fucking debut. Debut. Debut? This isn't a debut. I'm sorry. What? I thought this was like her third book or some shit, but no, it's her debut. So like, it's the kind of thriller you don't have to think too much about. I did not use any thoughts when reading this book, which is exactly what I needed right now. But like, if you want a thriller that like is going to have so much complex motivations and so much that you want to unpick, I don't think Sharon Lapina is the author for you. She is quick, like perfect for holiday reads, like fun, quick, fast paced thrillers, right? Upon reflection, the characters in this are a bit, one note, they're a bit stupid. Like, I swear all the characters in this share one brain cell and the plot going as it does through every stage of like every twist requires them all to share one brain cell. So like if you want clever characters, if you don't want like stereotypical action, like if you don't want that, maybe not think for you, but I loved reading it. Like I thought it was so good. It's so well like paced and plotted and you can't see just like, oh my god, like what is next? Like I will say though, like I don't know if many of the twists were like shocks. You know, it is like a stereotypical thriller. I feel like a lot of what happens is like tropes from like every other thriller. It's not, in my opinion, really doing anything new. It's not like shocking us with like something really imaginative. But like, I don't think that's what it's trying to do. I think it's just trying to be a solid ass thriller. And in my opinion, that's what it achieved. I enjoyed it. I had fun. We had a good time. And at the end of the day, that's all you can ask of a book. Did I have a good time reading this? Yes, I did. Were they stupid? Did I lend the characters my one brain cell to use during this book? Yes, I did. We all shared my one collective brain cell. But I liked it. I had a lot of fun reading it and I could not put it down. I read it so quick. I literally just read it last night and a little bit this morning while I was getting ready. So I feel like on the whole this vlog has been pretty successful. We had two four stars and a 3.5 star. It was leaning a bit more towards a three. So I really hope you enjoyed this vlog. I know it went a bit off the rails towards the end because I got ill, but I'm starting to feel better across all my different... I don't think I've spoken about all the different things that have been happening. I forget where I've spoken about things and not. I feel like I could I speak to my patrons about stuff on our live shows and I forget I haven't said stuff in a vlog. But I also had like a costocrine dry test flare up. I've had a bit of a period from house. Like it hasn't been fun. But I feel like we're over all of that now. We're starting to get through it. So hopefully this won't impact any other vlogs. I hope you enjoyed this series as well at the start of Taste the TBR. I'm really excited for all the other like additions that are going to happen in this series. I need to start planning what the next one's going to be. So let me know if there's any things you would like to see me taste like a blind taste, different flavors off down below. And yeah, I really hope you enjoyed the series because it's a series I've been really excited to do for a really long time. If you've gotten to the end of this video, comment a cupcake emoji or any cake emoji for the holiday swap because they're bakers. Comment that down below. I hope you all guys are having a good time. I hope you're all keeping well. And yeah, I will see you very soon in another video. Bye!